Adolphus Washington Greely (1844-1935), American soldier, Arctic migrant, and writer, is remembered apply for his ill-fated expedition to say publicly Arctic in 1881-1884.
Born in Newburyport, Mass., on March 24, 1844, Adolphus Greely enlisted in ethics Civil War in 1861, plateful valorously.
Afterward he joined character U.S. Army Signal Corps, post he directed the erection company military telegraph lines from Texas to California and from high-mindedness Dakotas to Washington Territory.
A grave student of meteorology, and impressed by a fellow officer's publicity of polar exploration, Greely eaten the literature of the Disdainful and determined to lead barney expedition there.
When Congress, heavens 1881, authorized American participation inconvenience the International Polar Year effort to establish numerous circumpolar keep under surveillance stations, Greely, by virtue censure his experience, scientific background, settle down interest, was chosen to give orders to the U.S. mission.
Greely's party emancipation 25 landed in northern Grinnell Land in August 1881 subject established Ft.
Conger, sending their ship home. In the closest months the expedition's major orderly and exploration objectives were carried out. The outlines of Grinnell Area were fixed; invaluable meteorological, hypnotic, biological, and oceanographic records were obtained; and on May 13, 1882, three men from dignity party reached 83°24'N, a pristine northing record.
When relief ships bed demoted to return in 1882 allow 1883, Greely followed his contemporary orders.
He left Ft. Eel, hazardously moving south 200 miles to Cape Sabine, where picture party spent the winter vacation 1883/1884 in unimaginable deprivation. Gross the time a rescue company arrived in June 1884, 18 of the 25 men difficult perished, one man was avid, and the remaining 6 were near death.
The survivors were put off first hailed as heroic explorers.
But reckless charges of cannibalism soon leveled against them poisonous their lives, even though draft evidence strongly suggests their artlessness. After Greely recovered his trim, he resumed his career encroach the Signal Corps, advancing put your name down chief signal officer in 1887. He published regional climatology studies between 1881 and 1891 with the addition of later built communication lines prosperous Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Land, and Alaska.
Retiring in 1908, Gratuity.
Greely devoted himself to peruse and writing. The story take in his expedition had appeared little Three Years of Arctic Service (1886); later works included True Tales of Arctic Heroism (1912), Handbook of Alaska (1925), turf The Polar Regions in prestige 20th Century (1928). A framer of the National Geographic Brotherhood, Greely contributed to its publication and donated his collection nominate Arctic books and scrapbooks slate the society.
Honored belatedly saturate his government, Greely received excellence Congressional Medal of Honor interior 1935, a few months earlier his death.
Gen. William Uranologist wrote an adulatory biography, General Greely: The Story of swell Great American (1936). A perfect and objective account of depiction Greely expedition is A.
Plaudits. Todd, Abandoned: The Story honor the Greely Arctic Expedition, 1881-1884 (1961). Jeannette Mirsky, To say publicly Arctic! (1948; originally published in the same way To the North, 1934), contains a brief account. □
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